The reasons why states should NOT participate in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion are well-documented: Medicaid patients have worse health outcomes than patients with other forms of insurance, and in many cases worse health outcomes than the uninsured; Medicaid beneficiaries often face difficulty finding doctors who will treat them; and by increasing federal spending funded by massive tax increases, a Medicaid expansion will destroy jobs rather than create them.
Less well known, however, are the innovative programs states have utilized over the past several years to modernize and enhance their health sectors, expanding coverage and improving quality of care while lowering costs. Rather than utilizing Obamacare’s top-down, government-centric approach of putting more people into a broken Medicaid program, these policy solutions seek to transform Medicaid using market incentives to create a health system that works for patients.
Read the full article by Chris Jacobs at Galen.org.
More health reform information on the Obamacare page.